Course Description
This is primarily a research-oriented and seminar-style course covering topics of robotics in field and service industries, urban search and rescue, and applications in nuclear environments and logistics. It enables students to understand, devise, and solve problems in advanced robotics applications.
Athena Title
Advanced Topics in Robotics
Prerequisite
CSCI(ARTI) 4530/6530 and (CSCI 4500/6500 or CSCI 1730) or permission of department
Semester Course Offered
Not offered on a regular basis.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Robotics has become one of the key interdisciplinary research areas resulting in the growth of intelligent and connected vehicles taking our service, logistics, entertainment, industrial, and transportation infrastructures. Especially, networked robots play an increasingly important role in several applications such as field and service robotics, urban search and rescue (USAR) during accidents and disasters (like the ones in Fukushima nuclear disaster), robotics in nuclear environments (e.g., at CERN), unmanned monitoring, survey and securing of large complex environments, and multipurpose mobile sensor networks. Therefore, it is important to understand the robotics literature and advance it through research and survey in the field and service robotics, rescue robotics, etc., which are the main objectives of this course. This course will primarily be research oriented, with most lectures presented in a seminar-type format, and there will be a small simulation/hardware project assignment. First, the instructor will present the initial few lectures and cover the fundamental concepts in field robotics. In turn, each student will present the analysis of a research paper selected from top robotics conferences or relevant journals. All participants will be required to write a short review of the assigned readings before each lecture. In addition, the course requires each student to formulate and address a relevant research problem in networked robotic systems through simulation/hardware experiments either individually or in teams (depending on the course enrollment). The analysis of the chosen research problem, proposed solution, and experimental evaluation should be completed and reported in a conference- style paper by the end of the term (this is the equivalent of the final exam). Criteria for evaluation are given below: Class Participation and Homework = 20% Paper Reviews = 10% Paper Presentations = 25% Research Project = 45% Textbooks: There is no textbook required. The course requires reading research papers, which are available online through UGA subscription network.
Topical Outline
Topics to be covered: •Field and service robotics, including applications in healthcare •Robotics in nuclear environments •Robotics in logistics and warehousing •Search and rescue robotics •Challenges in sensing and perception in field robotic applications •Challenges in communication aspects in field robots •Coordinated mapping of environments using multi-robot systems •Other applications of unmanned robots